Kenneth Copeland - We Are To Love As He Loved Us
— Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland and this is professor Greg Stephens. Greg Stephens is a Hebrew scholar and has a certificate to prove it. And I could rightfully call him Dr. Greg Stephens, but he has studied what is generally called the Old Testament or the proper word for it is the First Testament. The word is covenant. This is a book of covenants, different covenants over different things. So his expertise at Kenneth Copeland Bible College is surveying this first covenant and how it's a picture of Jesus in the second. Jesus is therefore called the second and the last Adam, because Adam broke that first one, but Jesus ended it in the second one. Because the covenant is not between the Christian covenant, in old English is Testament, but there was just a translation of the word covenant. And then covenant is used throughout both copies as partakers of the new covenant. Jesus said in the last supper, the most glorious moments that changed heaven and earth. "I give you a new covenant, a new commandment. I give you a new commandment that you love one another as I have loved you". Now, when we accepted Jesus as our Lord and savior, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He is the gift to the world. We accepted him and we were made new creatures. Now, then after that, Jesus said in that same covenant meal, he said, "I'm sending you a new comforter, a new standby, a new intercessor, a new strengthener. I will not leave you as orphans". He said, "I'm sending you a spirit. It's the Spirit of God. It is the Holy Spirit. He has been with you. He will be in you". So, I wanted you to realize that that's where we are. And that's the reason this man's ministry is so vital and so important, particularly to these students in the Bible college. You need to know covenant. You need to understand it. He's a covenant making, covenant keeping God. Praise God.
— It's like being a part of an all inclusive vacation resort thing, but you don't know you're all inclusive. And so you're eating crackers in your room not knowing that the...
— There was a man, this actually happened, he just made together enough money. He got a board a ship to come to the United States from Great Britain. He got just enough money to pay for the ticket and he brought with him some little snacks and there was just crackers and cheese because he spent all he had on that ticket. This is a true story. At the end of the voyage, the steward asked him, "Did we do something to offend you"? "Oh, no". "Then why did you never come in and eat with us"? "Because I only had enough money for the ticket". He said. "Oh, didn't you know the meals were included"? He didn't know what the covenant that he made with that line when he bought that ticket, he didn't know the meals were included. There are Christians all over the world that don't know healing is included in the tickets. Because of misreading the King, particularly the King James New Testament, which uses the word saved.
— Well, we only preach salvation, we don't preach healing.
— Well, now wait a minute. The same Greek word is translated the same way. It's all in the ticket. Because it's all in the mercy and the grace and the goodness of God.
— And so as a result, we have people that don't pray correctly, not take the Lord's prayer, not even pray that correctly. Not understand that's a fulfillment it's already been fulfilled in Christ or not understand that that prayer on Mount Sinai, what it did for us. Now, well, yesterday we looked at Luke, but let's look at Matthew.
— This whole sixth chapter of Matthew is about prayer, which included what's called the Lord's Prayer. And in verse five, he said, "When you pray, you'll not be like the hypocrites are for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men. Barely I say unto you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter your closet, and when you shut your doors, pray to the Father, which is in secret and the Father, which sees in secret shall reward thee openly". I have done that. Now back when I was at my closet wasn't very big, but in the home that Gloria designed and that belongs to the ministry is now on this property I have a large closet. And just go in there and just fall on my face, just shut the door and just fall on my face before God. When you pray, don't use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they will be heard for their very much speaking. Be not if therefore like unto them for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask him, but you need to ask him. Jesus said, "Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find". We read after one translator that said that word seek in Hebrew remains research. That's what we're doing here. We're researching all of this material here in this first covenant and finding the attributes of God and why he answers prayer. But then Jesus said in that covenant meal, "Up to now, you've asked me nothing. But whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it you". That's the answer to start with.
— Right. He's transitioning them from the first system to a better system. Paul will talk about this. The book of Hebrews will hammer this. Jesus is a better mediator than Moses. He's a better high priest than Aaron. He's a better covenant establishment on better promises. So Jesus at that meal is transitioning them to receive the Holy Spirit, to not resist that.
— Now where we began, was in 2 Peter, his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that called us the glory and excellence, whereby his divine power has given unto us exceeding great and precious covenant promises. By these you might be the partaker. All of this is covenant thinking. Covenant thought.
— It's a faith covenant.
— Yes, it is.
— Legalism will disconnect your person's heart from living by faith because you're looking at yourself. You mentioned while ago and thank you for your kind words about my training. The Lord won't allow me to call myself doctor. It's for me. It's a personal thing. I cannot allow myself to have faith in my knowledge, or my training, or my upbringing, or anything else, it's all him.
— I'm the same way about that.
— It's me. That it's a personal thing with me.
— I could use it.
— Sure. Yes you could.
— But I don't like it.
— Right.
— I'd rather them call me, hey Bubba. And I don't want to sound...
— No, maybe you got a doctorate degree, go on.
— A medical doctor that is very kind to me, very precious friend of mine until he went on to be with the Lord. It disturbed him when someone that was called a doctor, but he didn't feel like they had put forth as much effort to study all the things that he studied. Well, that depends on who that person is or was. P.C. Nelson, that Kenneth Hagin quoted, could speak and write in 32 different languages. He might not be a medical doctor, but I don't know medical doctors that can do that. So it's the chosen field and both of them, the man that went on to be with the Lord, God blessed his medical practice. God blessed P.C. Nelson and he became a great Bible teacher. So you go back into these things, we study this not to get a title. That's what he was teaching right there in the book of Matthew, don't go at it for that reason. If you do, you've got your reward.
— That's what the Pharisees did.
— So what do you do? You go after the information. You go after the blessing, it's all blood backed.
— I go after it as a disciple.
— Yes I do too.
— And I want to know him, so look for him. So whenever I read the first Testament, I'm looking for Jesus. And when I'm reading the New Testament, the second Testament, I'm reading it through the eyes of Paul. If you will, the Paul's revelation of this has been fulfilled. That's why I have that arrow in my Bible to remind me of this. I'm going to read you something that E.W. Kenyon said, and I think this applies to this. We've preached condemnation and sin so long that we do not know how to preach righteousness and tell believers what they are in Christ or who they are in Christ. When someone does tell them, they think it's false teaching. It's because...
— Oh, I had that. You have too.
— Oh, absolutely. Imagine hearing this. And this is, I'm going to quote John 5:42. Imagine hearing Jesus tell you this, "But I know you that you have not the love of God in you". See, I'd rather have the love of God in me than all the knowledge. He's talking about the Pharisees, they had all the knowledge. They didn't have the love of God in them. And so when he's standing right there in front of them, when love is standing right in front of them, they can't recognize him for who he is. Well, they ask him, "What's your credential, who's your papers, who'd you study under"? See, that's the type of attitude and that you don't want to be on that team. You don't want to be on that team. This is why he, Paul will tell Timothy, "Stick with the Word. Don't let him despise you for your youth. If you'll preach the Word, you'll be all right". And so that was a personal thing for me, that that's what I've got to do. And that's the way I've got to be. Jesus said, "If I be lifted up, I'll draw all men". My goal is to make Jesus lifted up and to find him. And so that's what we're saying. And 1 John 4:10, it says this, "What is the love of God"? Somebody says. He says, "Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins". That little word, as, you've said it several times all throughout this week, it's a big word. As he loved us, that's how we love. And you can't just bypass that little bitty word. Jesus knew as long as they kept their focus... That first Testament, if you're not careful, you'll keep your focus on trying to earn your righteousness because that's what they're trying to do. They don't have the Holy Spirit in them. They don't have a recreated spirit in them yet.
— Well, they'd studied it since they were 12, 13 years old.
— Oh. Even before that.
— Night and day, day and night and it became God. This what they studied became God.
— And they're each trying to outdo the other one with.
— And so that God was no longer in it. What they were studying became God, and they couldn't see God when he came.
— And we have that today. We have people trying to argue with you over saying, "You're the righteous that wouldn't play your record".
— Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And the misunderstanding, he has made us the righteousness of God in Christ, that illustration that we were talking about earlier, he made us the righteousness of God. Napoleon was among the troops and his horse bolted, and a young man just stepped out and caught that horse. He said, "Thank you captain". He said, "Sir, but I'm but a private, not anymore. You will ride beside me". He made him a captain. Jesus who knew no sin was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
— And now me who knew no righteousness has been made righteousness. And I cannot undo that, he made that.
— That's right. Now they get righteousness and holiness mixed up.
— Yes. Not the same thing.
— Now, the fruit of the Spirit produces holiness. You were made righteous. Now you practice the fruit of the Spirit beginning with love, joy, and peace. You practice that and it produces holiness.
— See, I had to really overcome that Brother Copeland, because I grew up in a holiness church. So I thought holiness was weirdness. The weirder you looked and the weirder you acted, the more holy you were, somebody you're laughing in here. I mean, it was all about your skirt length for women, it was all about your haircut and you couldn't have your hair long at all. And we had a picture of Jesus with long hair sitting right there and I'm thinking, and I asked, wait a minute, "Would he be allowed into this church"? I mean, you know what I mean? We took it and twisted it because it's all head knowledge. It's not a revelation about righteousness.
— They didn't read the next little line. The apostle said, "Nature will tell you that it's a shame for a man to have long hair, but if there's any contention over this, forget it". You just didn't read the rest of it.
— Right. Their blindness to the truth, I wrote this down, their blindness to the truth was reflected in how they treated people. Especially Jesus, who was the love of God, right in front of them. Jesus was saying in the same chapter, "Search the scriptures for, in them, you'll find me". And that's what I do. I search the scriptures to find Jesus. And I realize that the entirety of the book is a faith covenant book. And if I'm going to approach him, I approach him by faith.
— When you do that, and for me, it begins right there at the 17th chapter of Genesis where God appeared to Abraham. Abraham fell on his face and he began to talk to him and right there he changed his name. The first record of a covenant name change, we practiced that today. Gloria was Gloria Jean Neece. She became Gloria Jean Copeland because we entered into a marriage covenant. That's where that started. There are people that don't have any understanding of that. And there are women that won't turn loose of their maiden name and they want some kind of hyphen in there so that her name is reflected. She hasn't entered into a covenant. It's a marriage of convenience or a prenuptial agreement. Forgive me, but that's just legal sex. So all of that, there's no covenant there. I'm not giving that woman anything. Well, forget it.
— See that name change happened with her out of love. That was a love covenant. And that love of her, that love changed you.
— Yes it did. And I meant it when I said it, all of my goods belongs to her and I'm that way today. I can't get her to take enough, but it just...
— Brother Copeland, the Pharisees wanted to fix people. Jesus wanted to restore people. You said it in four words and that's how we have to fix this. I don't know, I weren't there. Based on the stories you tell and they're precious, I love them because I learned from them. Do you learn when you sing to miss Gloria? I mean everybody in that room, we see what love did in you, based upon what you tell us of.
— I just recorded those songs, by the way.
— Did you?
— I didn't plan to do it. And when I originally made it, I just made it. I just recorded it for her. But then the Lord really dealt with me and he said, "I want you to start recording again, and I want you to record love songs". I had just married a couple and I said to him, "Now you are going to be like me and I sing to Gloria that she's the best thing". He said, "I want to know that you got to teach that song to me so I can sing it to her". It so impressed me and the Lord said, "I want you to record it, and I want you to release it on a CD". Well, the first time she ever heard me sing was in Camden, Arkansas on a jukebox that said, "one more time". Which when I found one for sale, I bought it and just to give it to her. And it's now in our den with that song on it Misty, so I recorded that on that CD because I love her song. And I was singing to her. I wasn't singing to the world, I was just singing to her. And then the Lord said, "You record those so that it's a love song with the purest just the love of God through you to her". He said, "You record that and make it so precious that some young man can put that on and play it while he asks his fiance to marry him". It's so pure and such a love song. He said,"I want you to continue to record love songs. Just love songs from God to the people and that they could sing among themselves".
— She didn't try to fix you?
— No.
— But the love of God in her allowed Jesus to restore you. When I was a pastor, I'd hear women in counseling say, "Wow. I'm just going to fix him".
— No, you're not. You make it worse.
— But you can make it worse. Allow the love of God to go through you, Jesus will restore. Listen, maybe you should write this one down. You ready? Forgiveness will do nothing about your past, but it will change your future. Will change your future.
— And the knowledge that you have the power and authority to forgive. The same power and authority to forgive that God does. And being like him that's what Jesus said, "When you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any, that you're heavenly Father forgive your trespasses". All of that is in the Lord's Prayer. And whoever sends you a remit will be remitted, you have that power. The love of God isn't about what we do for God. It's about what he's done for us. And allowing that to flow out of us, not out of duty and religion, but out of righteousness.
— And how much time we have Carol? 30 seconds. Oh my... Next week, I believe the Lord would have us go into the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians because all of that is all brought into one love chapter. And it's only just a few verses and we're out time. Glory to God. Thank You Lord. Thank You Lord. Thank You Lord. Thank You lord.